


Sleeping With Ghosts

by Light_Within_Darkness



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Brief Smut, Community: snkkink, Explicit Language, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, For The Kink Meme!, I'm Sorry, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Posted Elsewhere, Sadness, Soulmates, Yaoi, so you guys know what happens to Mike at the end, taken from a prompt where when you meet your soulmate you see in color for the first time, then when your soulmate dies you go back to seeing in black and white, this is set in canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:30:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Light_Within_Darkness/pseuds/Light_Within_Darkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this world, there were three things that everyone knew:</p>
<p>1) Everyone has a soulmate.<br/>2) When you first meet your soulmate, you start seeing in color for the first time.<br/>3) When your soulmate dies, you stop seeing in color, and can only see the world in black and white.</p>
<p>This is the story of Erwin Smith, Commander of the Survey Corps, and his ever-loyal Lieutenant and right hand man, Mike Zacharias.  Mike opens Erwin's eyes to all the colors of the world - green cloaks and red blood and serious cobalt-blue eyes.  He quickly becomes Erwin's rock, the one thing he can count on in a world where the only certainty is death.</p>
<p>But every rock breaks, and the world is uglier when it's seen in grey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping With Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another fill for the SnK Kink Meme. Taken from a prompt that's been floating around where people see in black and white until they meet their soulmates. Then they start seeing the world in color, but when a person's soulmate dies they go back to seeing things in black and white. I decided to post this on AO3 (as usual) in the hopes that the OP can find it a bit easier.
> 
> This is going to have manga spoilers up until Mike's death, so be warned.
> 
> The original fill and prompt can be found here: http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/8414.html?page=55#comments
> 
> The title is taken from the song "Sleeping With Ghosts" by Placebo. You can listen to it hear, if you so choose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvqNrkzPrBw

He hadn't cared about seeing the world in color until he met Mike.

As a child, of course, Erwin had been terribly curious about what colors were. All children were, having only ever seen the world cloaked in blacks and whites and greys, as if everything around them was an old, washed-out photograph. Meanwhile, the older people around them talked of blues and reds and a million colors in-between. Erwin didn't even know what colors _were,_ but all of the adults in his life talked about how wonderful it was to see the world in color, how much richer and more beautiful everything looked.

He remembered walking through a park in Sina with his nanny once, on a particularly fine spring day, and seeing a group of women remarking on a flower bed. "Do you prefer the red roses, or the pink ones?" One of them asked. "My, but aren't the tulips a particularly fine shade of yellow this year," another exclaimed. But the bright red petals the women exclaimed over were dark grey in Erwin's eyes, and the tulips were a soft white.

Erwin tugged lightly on his nanny's skirts. "What are those people talking about?" He asked her, pointing back at the group of ladies by the flower beds. "What's _red_ and _yellow_ and _pink?_ "

His nanny smiled gently and patted Erwin on the head. "Those are the names of colors, dear," she explained. "You'll be able to see them someday yourself, once you meet your soulmate."

Erwin's mother and father had told him about soulmates, of course, after they tucked him into bed at night. "Every person has a soulmate, son," his father had explained. "A very special person that they're meant to be with from birth, and the two of you will love and cherish and protect each other forever."

"When you first meet your soulmate, you start to see the world in color, his mother added, softly smoothing an errant lock of hair from her son's forehead. "It's a wonderful feeling, Erwin - like opening your eyes for the very first time."

"When will I meet my soulmate?" Erwin asked, curious. His parents looked at each other and smiled.

"You will someday," they promised him. "Everyone does, after all." And these sweet stories of soulmates and colors were what lulled Erwin to sleep every night, tucked away safe in his bed.

When he was ten years old, Erwin's father took him into his study for the first time. His father's study was a small room towards the back of the house that was always kept firmly locked, and Erwin had been warned sternly against going in there. It was supposed to be his father's private room, after all, and no one else was to disturb it.

When he was first allowed into the study, Erwin's breath caught in his chest at the sight of _books,_ stacked high in shelves that stretched floor to ceiling in the small room. Books were a rare and valuable thing these days, and Erwin had never seen this many in one place. Most books these days were used as frivolous decorations, displayed as status items in the houses of the extremely wealthy. Or else they were tattered and worn things with crumbling pages, like what passed for Erwin's schoolbooks. Any books that had been made before the Titans came were, of course, extremely illegal.

Yet it turned out that Erwin's father had managed to save a few of them, using his position and contacts in the Survey Corps to find and store what books he could for safekeeping. Erwin and his father crowded around the small wooden desk in the center of the room, and Erwin's father read the books to him by the flickering light of a small lantern. All of them spoke of the vast, wide world beyond the Three Walls. There were lands covered entirely in snow and ice, and mountains that spit fire, and a huge body of water called the _ocean_ that was hundreds of times larger than even the largest lake or river. A vast, unexplored world that had once, ages upon ages ago, belonged to humanity.

"These books represent freedom," Erwin's father explained to him, his words weighted with importance. The man's hands, roughened and callused by many days and nights of hard riding and of wielding blades against the Titans, held the books with an almost reverent gentleness. "They show us that where we live now is a mere prison that we are kept in by Titans. Out there, in the wide world around us, is where humanity belongs. Only when we have defeated the Titans, and can live outside these Walls without fear, will we truly be free."

"That's what the Survey Corps does, right?" Erwin had asked. "You go outside the Walls in order to kill the Titans?" 

His father chuckled, reaching out to ruffle Erwin's hair. "Yes, son, that's exactly what we do. But the Survey Corps only leaves on short expeditions, and we don't travel for very long distances. I'm talking about leaving the Walls behind for good, and living our lives unbounded. Once the Titans are gone, humans can go anywhere they please in the world."

His father's words were the spark that lit a fire inside of Erwin's heart. That was when he began to dream of freedom in earnest, and to look upon the monolithic grey walls that rose for miles into the sky around him with an abject hatred. The idea of living in a world where walls weren't omnipresent, where the sky stretched unbroken overhead for as far as the eye could see, was what Erwin now desperately wanted. He planned to join the military as soon as he was able, and to enlist in the Survey Corps alongside his father. He wanted to lead humanity towards freedom, to reclaim the world that humans had lost to Titans so long ago.

Erwin soon forgot any childish nonsense about soulmates and colors. What did those things matter when compared to the imprisonment of all mankind? His eyes were focused on the horizon, to when humans finally began to spread out from the grey, monolithic Walls and out into the world, free and unafraid. To reclaim their rightful places as masters of the Earth. And so Erwin put all of his efforts into school and physical training, determined to hone his mind and body as best he could so that he would be prepared for the rigors of military life. His mother worried, of course - Erwin didn't have much of a social life and his intensity tended to unnerve people. But his father watched Erwin grow, quietly approving of his son's vision. _My son will be the one who guides us all to freedom,_ he thought approvingly, watching as Erwin sparred with one of his father's military friends in the back garden.

Shortly after Erwin turned thirteen, only a few months before he was set to enter basic training, there came a knock on the door at a very early hour. His mother was still asleep and his father had left on an expedition outside the Walls a few days earlier, but Erwin had been awake and reading in his father's study. He went to answer the door expecting to see his father there, tired and dirty from days of hard riding, but nonetheless happy to be home and see his family once again.

Instead, however, Erwin opened the doors to find two somber-faced men wearing Survey Corps cloaks. His heart dropped into his stomach. "Is your mother awake, young man?" One of them asked quietly. "We need to speak with her."

Erwin knew his father was dead then, knew it as he woke his mother and knew it before she fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably in the front hall, when the two soldiers told her the news. Erwin, however, didn't feel much of anything. Just cold inside. Cold and numb. He didn't cry for his father's death, not once. Not even at the funeral, which was purely for ceremonial purposes as there was no body to bury. Plenty of people gave him funny looks then, wondering why Erwin didn't show any emotions, but he ignored them.

That was when Erwin fully understood the heavy specter of death that lay over all members of the Survey Corps. They all rode out beyond the Walls knowing that it could very well be their last day upon this earth. His father had told Erwin as much when he'd first expressed his desire to join the military, and conveyed his deep respect for the soldiers who gave their lives for humanity. Erwin had seen the heavy sadness in his father's face after an expedition, had seen the weary way his shoulders slumped with the weight of the dead on them. And yet, Erwin was still determined to join. 

He'd been a fool to think that his father wouldn't eventually fall in battle as well. The man had survived so many expeditions, and been regarded so highly by his fellow soldiers, that Erwin had had some childish notion that his father was invincible. On the day of the funeral - greyer than usual, as the clouds hung low and heavy in the sky - Erwin swore on his father's grave that he would not die until he was able to see with his own two eyes the fulfillment of his father's dream. Erwin's dream. He felt that dream settle on his shoulders, causing his breath to catch with its enormity, but Erwin was determined to bear that burden. It was worth it. "For the glory of humanity, Father," he murmured, and pressed his fist against his heart in a last salute to the man Erwin had admired more than anyone else.

After the death of his father, her soulmate, Erwin's mother had become a ghost of her former self. She spent most of her days sitting silently in the parlor, staring blankly out the window with wide, empty eyes. The woman would have wasted away if Erwin hadn't been there to force her to eat and drink.

"I can't see the color of your eyes anymore," Erwin's mother would whisper when he brought her tea in the afternoons. "Your beautiful blue eyes are gone. The sky is gone, the flowers are gone. Everything is grey now." And that was how Erwin learned that when your soulmate died, you were no longer able to see the world in color. It was a horrible thing, to be sure, but life was horrible sometimes. The way his mother looked right now as she touched his face, searching for even the slightest hint of blue in his eyes, made Erwin feel a bit relieved at having not met his soulmate yet.

After hiring a servant girl to take care of his mother, Erwin packed a few necessities into a bag and headed off for the recruitment station. His mother, however, didn't let her son go without a scene.

_"Please don't do this to me, Erwin!"_ His mother wailed, clinging desperately to her son's shoulders as Erwin stood awkwardly at the gate. A few of the neighbors were starting to peek out of their windows and doors to watch the spectacle, alerted by his mother's crying. "You're my _son,_ you're all I have left! I can't lose you too!" 

"Mother, I need to go," Erwin said quietly, gently but firmly removing his mother's hands from his shoulders. "Elizabeth will be here to take of you." He gestured at the servant girl wavering nervously in the doorway of their home, beckoning her to come and take his mother inside. "I'll come to visit as soon as I am able, I promise you."

"No! _No!_ Erwin, don't do this! You horrible, evil boy!" His mother screamed as Elizabeth took her gently by the hands and guided her back into the house. Erwin took a deep breath and walked out of the house. He didn't once look back. Erwin's eyes were, as always, focused on the horizon.

**-x-**

Erwin saw Mike for the first time on his first day of basic training, when all of the new recruits had lined up in the yard for the drill sergeant to inspect. Until then, he honestly hadn't believed that he would ever meet his soulmate. Erwin certainly hadn't expected to find him in the military of all places. Yet there they were, lined up in rows that the sergeant stalked between like an angry bulldog, asking new recruits their names and barking at any he felt were too timid. Erwin had been standing near the back, and his eyes happened to drift down the row and to the left. Another boy had also been looking in his direction - an older boy, by the looks of it. He was taller and more broad-shouldered than Erwin, with light, shaggy hair, and Erwin could see just a hint of stubble on his chin.

Their eyes met, and Erwin felt a jolt go through him, running along his limbs like lightning. It felt a bit like some kind of strange static electricity, and that was what Erwin thought it was, at first. Until his vision began to blur and distort, causing Erwin to let out a slight grunt and look away from the other boy, rubbing a hand over his eyes. _What the hell?_ He thought worriedly. _Is the heat getting to me or something?_

Erwin opened his eyes...and his world was no longer black and white. 

Names of colors started flowing through Erwin's mind, half-remembered from conversations he'd overheard from adults, from lessons at school, and from his old nanny. For a moment, he couldn't even move. He could only stand there, staring up at the sky with his mouth hanging open. It was so _blue,_ stretching up endlessly, reminding Erwin of a cool glass of water on a hot day. The leaves of the trees around him were a beautiful green, shimmering and waving in the light breeze. To Erwin, they seemed more lovely than even the most expensive jewel could possibly be. The patches of grass at the edge of the training field were a slightly lighter green, but no less pleasing to him. Even the soft brown of the earth around him was lovely to Erwin's eyes, albeit trampled and dusty from hundreds of boots pounding across it. Even the very sunlight seemed different, somehow, brighter and more vibrant. 

All Erwin could do was gaze around him, eyes wide and unblinking, at all of the mundane things around him that he'd never taken any notice of before. The different colors of hair on the heads around him - a million shades of red, blond, black, and brown. The different kinds of clothing everyone wore - mostly homespun earthen fabrics of browns and greys and greens, but here and there were a few brighter fabrics. A girl's skirt trimmed in pale yellow silk, a boy's bright orange shirt collar, the deep indigo of a blouse. Erwin's heart practically thundered in his chest as he took it all in. _Why? Why am I seeing things in color now, all of a sudden?_ The question raced in circles throughout Erwin's mind. _I must've seen my soulmate here. There's no other explanation. But who...?_

Then it hit him. _That guy...!_ Erwin's head whipped around, his eyes scanning the crowd for that older boy he'd been looking at only a few moments previously. The boy must have been looking down the line for Erwin as well, and their eyes met once again. Erwin felt his heart beat quicker as he stared at the boy's deep cobalt eyes and shaggy, sandy-blond hair. He felt a strange kind of pull towards this boy - his soulmate. Deep down, Erwin knew that this was the person he was meant to be with.

The taller blond jerked his head slightly to the right before turning around and breaking their eye contact in order to stare straight ahead again. Erwin looked forward just in time to straighten up and meet the dark, angry eyes of the drill sergeant in front of him. For a moment, he was mesmerized by how red the sergeant's face was from yelling at all the new recruits. "HEY!" The sergeant shouted at him, and Erwin fought not to flinch as a few flecks of spit hit his face. "What are you looking around for?! Eyeing up some pretty kid down the line?"

"No sir!" Erwin cried. "Just stretching my neck, sir!"

"What's your name, kid?" The sergeant growled, leaning in close enough for Erwin to feel the man's hot breath on his face.

"Erwin Smith, sir!"

The man's eyes widened slightly, allowing Erwin to marvel at the rich brown of the irises. "Smith, eh?" The sergeant said in a slightly quieter tone. "Don't suppose you're related to the late Lieutenant Smith, of the Survey Corps?"

"He was my father, sir," Erwin replied, meeting the sergeant's eyes with a serious, determined gaze.

The sergeant grunted approvingly. "I knew your father. He was a good man, one of the finest soldiers this place has ever seen. Do him proud, Smith." Before Erwin could say anything else, the sergeant was moving down the line and barking at more of the recruits.

Erwin leaned back slightly to watch as the drill sergeant stopped in front of his soulmate. "What's your name?" He barked.

"Mike Zacharias, sir!" The blond responded, in a firm voice tinged with the huskiness of puberty. It made Erwin feel pleasantly warm inside to hear it. _My soulmate,_ Erwin thought. _I've found him. In the military. When I'm planning to join the Survey Corps and go out to face Titans. When I'll be going up against all manner of enemies that could kill me easily. And if I die...he won't be able to see in colors anymore._

It made Erwin feel slightly sick inside to think about it. _What am I going to do?_

**Author's Note:**

> OP, if you see this I hope you like it. :)
> 
> Also this is my first time writing Erwin and Mike, so I hope they're not too OOC...


End file.
